Crying it out?

The daughter has been giving me an awful lot of trouble sleeping these past few days. She simply refuses to close her eyes. In fact far from it! To be able to sleep, a human being would typically need to 'decide' that s/he wants to sleep, then relax and if s/he is really sleepy allow at least a couple of minutes for the sweet nothing-ness to take over.

Here we have a situation where first, we do not want to sleep (ever, if we can help it), two, we will not lie down (we are a compulsive sitter as Mum likes to call us), third, we will simply not allow ourselves to relax so there is no chance at all that we can hit the bed for a few hours and catch up on our zzzzz's.

I have spent harrowing days (and nights) making her sleep four times a day for hours on end each time. This does not of course reflect on how long she sleeps after that! This morning I'd run out of everything - patience, ideas, energy, and what have you, and decided it was time for me to try out Ferber's approach of letting a baby cry itself to sleep. I'd sort of decided I'm never going to do it if I could help it, but today was simply one of those mornings!

I watched her howl and howl and howl more and wail and wail and wail for at least 10 minutes. Tell you what, it simply broke my heart and that is the biggest understatement ever. Finally nursed her to sleep, came out of the room and cried my own eyes out for longer than she did. At the end of the whole session, pulled myself together and decided I would just go in and sleep beside her. Which is what I intended to do when I entered the room, and guess what I saw (no prizes for guessing that!).

Why won't Bobo sleep?

8.05 p.m.

---My poor little thing, she's so sleepy. My dear little baby. My darling. About to sleep. This is great. Everything is done - medicine given, night dress put on, diaper changed. What an efficient mom I am. I can actually work on that to-do I have been waiting to attack for so long now.



8.15 p.m.

Twisting and turning and twisting and turning. Why can't she just close her eyes. She will fall asleep if she so much as blinks. The little devil.



8.35 p.m.

---I'm hungry babes. There's dinner waiting for me. I haven't had anything since that tea at 3 p.m. That too went cold because I had to keep running after you, remember?



8.50 p.m.

---More twisting and turning. Gosh. What can I possibly do to help her? My poor little baby. Should I just leave the room and let her be?



8.51 p.m.

---Back in the room again. Strategic failure admitted. Loud wailing will require another few minutes of soothing. Brace yourself woman. This is going to be an uphill task.



9.05 p.m.

Has it really been an hour? Is this person ever going to sleep? Need to cross out a few things from that to-do. One hour less to execute. There goes, finally the eyelids are shut. Oh no. No No. Don't go again. Sleep. Sleep baby. Sleep. Oh yes. There. The impossible has been achieved. Baby is asleep. Dinner, here I come.



9.06 p.m.

Was that crying I just heard? Or is my mind doing tricks on me?



9.20 p.m.

Loud wailing. Pick up, soothe, try again. Another fifteen minutes, another item off the to-do.



9.35 p.m.

Can it be true? No, may be I'm imagining it. Is she really asleep? Yes! Yes! Yes! Hurray for everyone. Peace reigns.